ARTICLES AND LETTERS TO LYNXYou are highly encouraged to write to the authors, by
clicking on their names to send them an e-mail, or to send your thoughts on
these subjects to Lynx for
publication as an article in the next issue.

In writing English tanka, it is acknowledged that there are
two main streams.

The one type is to write English tanka in the form of
5-7-5-7-7 syllable count following the Japanese tanka style. The
representative authors who write in this style are Fr. Neal H. Lawrence, and
James Kirkup.

In this style, the form of English tanka is the same as the
Japanese tanka. When
these English tanka are edited, as in an anthology, the beauty of their neat
form is impressive. But 31-syllable English tanka usually have more meaning
than there is in the Japanese poem. Therefore, when Japanese tanka are translated into English,
some words may have to be added to adjust the syllable count. On the other hand, when
English tanka are translated into Japanese, the content is too great to put
into the Japanese tanka form.

The other stream, I suppose, is that of English-speaking
people who have read the scholarly English translation of Man yoshuu or
Hyakunin-issyu (One Hundred Tanka by One Hundred Poets). They have learned that tanka is a
short poem with 5 lines. In this group there are some people, who write in 5
lines for the purpose of distinguishing tanka from haiku, but others insist on
writing tanka in four lines. These people usually don't pay a lot of attention
to the length of English tanka. The chief authors of this style are Jane
Reichhold who publishes the tanka magazine Lynx and Sanford Goldstein
who introduced Akiko Yosano, Shiki Masaoka and others to foreign readers
through his translations.

Among those who write tanka in this free style, are some
persons who have questioned whether this free style poem should deserve to be
called tanka or not. There are also others who want to write English tanka in a
definite form. Moreover, those who write Japanese original tanka and try to
translate it into English have a strong desire to get a definite form of
English tanka.

To answer those demands, Prof. Ohno insists on a 21 syllable
tanka, that is 3+5+3+5+5=21 syllable tanka in English, and at most within a
permissible range he proposed 20 plus or minus 3-syllable tanka. He originated
the method of reciting his own tanka in a normal speaking voice, without
singing tone nor tremolo. Through his experiments, he concludes that if you
put suitable words to every 5 lines of English tanka, you will reproduce a
definite form of tanka.

I also grope with the question of proper style in translating
Japanese tanka into the English. My first attempt was to translate Fr.
Lawrence's anthology into Japanese using the Japanese tanka form. Through this
translation, I realized that it is by no means easy to translate his tanka
into the definite form of Japanese, even considering the extra syllable
allowed by jiamari.

Next, I translated Anna Holley's tanka which bears a great
similarity to the Japanese tanka form. Her tanka is from 17 syllables to 24
syllables,* with only one 26 syllable tanka** as the exception. The most
frequent number of syllables of each line of her tanka *** is 3, 5, 3, 5, and
5, which proves the reliability of Prof. Ohno's theory.

over a field
of withered grass
from the friction
of cicada
on cicada,
thin smoke arises

In this tanka three syllable word, "cicada" is used
twice, and this is the reason it has 26 syllables.

***
syllables used in the 1st line:
2 syllables used 17 times,
3 syllables used 35 times
4 syllables used 32 times
5 syllables used 6 times (a total of 90 poems)

syllables used in the 2nd line:
4 syllables used 32 times
5 syllables used 47 times
6 syllables used 11 times (90 poems)

syllables used in the 3rd line:
2 syllables used 5 times
3 syllables used 46 times
4 syllables used 33times
5
syllables used 6 times (90)

syllables used in the 4th line:
3 syllables used 1time
4 syllables used 28 times
5 syllables used 46 times
6
syllables used 12 times
7 syllables used 2 times
8 syllable used 1 time (90)

syllables used in the 5th line:
3 syllables used 1 time
4 syllables used 26 time
5 syllables used 52 times
6
syllables used 11times (90)

I tried to find what English tanka form was most suitable for
my English translation.

My approach to find a definite English tanka form which
balanced properly to the Japanese tanka should be hopefully done through a
theory. Japanese tanka is considered to consist of 5 lines of 31 syllables in
all with built- in pauses. It is admitted that considering these pauses, every
Japanese tanka has forty spaces which are equivalent to forty syllables. In
pronouncing Japanese, which has no outstanding stress, it is a characteristic
that two sound units are pronounced together as one beat.*

The meter of Japanese tanka is quadruple time, and two sounds
equal one beat.

Thus, it is my conclusion that Japanese tanka which has forty
spaces, must be balanced by twenty syllables in English tanka.

The reason I dare not determine the number of syllables in
every line as Prof. Ohno did in his assumption, but count the number of
syllables as a whole tanka is based on the theory of "definite amount of
tanka", which was proposed in the beginning of the Showa era. I noticed
that Yukitsuna Sasaki mentioned it in a round-table talk on "Rhyme of
Tanka" in the series of Tanka and Japanese , the third volume
published by Iwanami-bookstore.

I looked for this theory in the National Library and found the
article written by Zenmaro Toki concerning "The Definite Quantity of
Tanka". Zenmaro says that Nobuyuki Ohkuma advocated such a theory as
follows: Ohkuma said that tanka has not only definite form, but also has a
definite amount, as it were tanka has twofold aspects. Tanka is the unity of
both these essences. I think that his assumption refers to both
characteristics of tanka.

Though I might seem to be wandering off the subject, I would
like to quote more of Ohkuma's theory, as this theory is very important
regarding the substance of tanka.

"The definite form of tanka is 5 lines with 5-7-5-7-7 on
(kana or sound unit) and at the same time, the definite amount of tanka is 31 on as a rule.
And even if there were some malfunction in the division of 5-7-5-7-7 on, we
can call it a definite form of tanka . And even if there were one or two more
or less on than the definite amount of tanka, we can still call it a
definite amount of tanka. The definite amount of tanka is able to exist apart
from the definite form of tanka, but the latter isn't able to exist
independently from the former. This is the reason that tanka can keep its
literary life surpassing the other similar forms of poems."

In different words, I think that "the malfunction in the
division of 5-7-5-7-7" means the phenomena of ku-ware (split
phrase) and ku-matagari (fused phrase). Likewise, "if there are
one or two increase or decrease of on than the definite amount of
tanka, we can call it as the definite amount of tanka" because of the
phenomena of jiamari (extra on)".

Moreover, I think that the last part of this quotation is
especially important. It refers to the superiority of "the definite
amount of tanka" to "the definite form of 5-7-5-7-7".

His statements are about the twofold aspects of tanka, though
he wasn't clearly aware of tanka's absolute rhyme which two sounds on the
forty spaces with built-in pauses are pronounced as one beat. In translating
tanka into another language, first of all, we have to consider English rhyme
of poetry. In translating Japanese tanka into English, it is more practical
not to have the regular number of syllables in each line.

As the next step, I examined the number of stress, as it were
the number of foot, of Anna Holley's tanka.

We call the combination of
length of sound, long or short and strong or weak in lines of poetry
"meter". We call the combination of long or strong syllable and
short or weak syllable "foot". In English poetry, "foot"
is composed of one or two weak syllables.

In Anna's anthology Cold Waves, the number of stress is
mainly 2-2-2-2-2 feet. A counting of the number of foot in each line of Cold
Waves show that she used for the 1st and
3rd lines:
0 foot-lines 3 times (1.6 %)
1 foot-lines 63 times (35%)
2 foot-lines 104 times (58%)
3 foot-lines 20 times (5.4 %)

This result coincides with the statement of Prof.
Nakagawa that tanka is 10-foot-equivalent English tanka in his book Tanka
in English. He says as follows:

"Nobody is opposed to it, but not adopted by all. you can
be free to translate tanka in any way you like. And the result would be any
kind of short poetry. . . If you prefer the quantitative equivalent
(i.e. ten feet) of the tanka, it would be five dimeter lines(2-2-2-2-2), one
dimeter and two tetrameter lines(4-4-2, 4-2-4 0r 2-4-4), one tetrameter and
one hexameter line(4-6 or 6-4), two pentameter lines(5-5) or other conceivable
variations in ten feet." From this I acknowledge that he concludes if
tanka has ten feet in all, the division of foot is free.

It is not written in Nakagawa's book why he reached this
conclusion, but Prof. Hideo Okada who has sympathy with Nakagawa's theory says
that by fitting the number of English stress to the numbers of phrases in
Japanese, the most faithful translation will be gotten not only in meaning,
but also in length and rhyme of tanka. He named this
"foot-parallelism" in contrast to "syllable-parallelism".
Prof. Okada says that this idea was already written in Kochi Doi's volume on Words
and Rhyme some years before.

Compare the Japanese and English versions of the two parts of
this tanka:haru gaki ta(two phrases, five syllables, 1.2 seconds)

The books
on the shelves
are mine. (three stresses, seven syllables, 2.3 seconds)

It is my pleasure to come to the same conclusion by analyzing
Anna's tanka. Through the translation of Anna's tanka into Japanese in the
form of tanka, I want to conclude that the definite form of English tanka
equivalent to the Japanese is 20 plus and minus 3 syllables, in other words,
10 foot poetry.

Note:
In LYNX Book Reviews of issue XV:2 is a
complete review of Cold Waves. For persons wishing to order the book,
here is the purchase information from that review: Cold
Waves: A life of Tanka by Anna Holley, translated into the Japanese by Aya
Yuhki. Ashi Press:2000. Perfect bound, 94 pp., 8 ˝ x 5 ˝ inches, $10.00 +
$2.00 s&h from Ashi Press, 6162 Lakeshore, Dallas, TX 75214 or from Aya
Kuhki, 2-9-4 Fujimi, Sayama-shi T3055-1306, Japan.

For some people, the idea of haiku poetry seems to begin with
Matsuo Basho - although he never used that term himself. He composed
hokku and haikai no renga. For other people, the modern period of
the three phrase 5,7,5 syllable poem began with Masaoka Shiki who used the
term 'haiku' to distinguish the independent poem from the opening poem of
linked poetry.

Others, with even more restriction, identify haiku with
Shiki's theory of shasei. Whatever are the merits of these views,
I regard the idea of haiku as having a long history back to VIIIth Century
Japanese songs and poetry. The word "haiku" was first used in a
published work in 1663. The word "haikai' goes back at least to the
Kokinshuu of 905, the first imperial poetry collection. The idea of
hokku has a history back to Chinese poetics.

All that we can be certain of is that there has been an
evolutionary process from the beginnings of Japanese recorded poetry, back to
the Kojiki, 712, Nihonshoki, 720, and the Man'yo-shuu,
mid-VIIIth Century.

There is no difficulty in tracing the idea of haiku back to
the hokku of the zenith period of propositionally linked poetry, the ushin
no renga. In the XVth Century, Iio So-gi brought this form of linked
poetry to its perfection. The origin of hokku is more
problematical. I have researched all Japanese poems up to and including
the 905 Kokinshuu. I am familiar with a great
deal of the poetry up to the end of the XVth century. There is no doubt
whatever that large numbers of independent hokku had been collected together
by the XIVth century. Some of these must have existed as independent
poems. There is also no doubt that the rules for composition of renga
also changed. The fushimono distribution rules required the early
renga to be thematically unified. While in the mature hyakuin
(100-link renga) this thematic unity had been replaced by adjacent stanza linkage, categories
and associations still remained, and it is not possible to read a classical hyakuin
renga without knowledge of these rules. The hokku, or opening poem, had
a specific importance in the earlier renga sequences. It is not
surprising, therefore, that anthologies of hokku were collected. The
more than 500 years from the Kokinshuu 905 to the birth of So-gi in
1421 may hold the key to the origin of the hokku. In that period some of
Japan's greatest poets lived. These include Fujiwara Teika [1162-1241]
and the greatest hokku poet, Shinkei [1406-1475] .

Many people believe that the 5 line waka (tanka) poem, which
had become the dominant form of poetry by 905, the long chooka
poem having almost disappeared, broke up to a 3 line poem, the so-called sankugire
split. However, there are many examples of a 2 line poem being answered by a 3
line poem, and a 3 line poem being answered by a 2 line poem as in the
earliest linked poetry, the tan renga. Of importance here is the
parallelism that was a feature of Chinese poetry. This requires the same
form to be repeated. This is perfectly possible in chooka because
of the repeated 5,7,5,7 pattern. It is not feasible in the waka
or in its modern equivalent, the tanka. The (5+7) + (5+7) +7 structure
of five lines is asymmetrical, suggesting a (5 + 7 + 5) + (7 + 7) fault
line and hence the proto-type hokku splitting from the waka.

For a long time I have thought this theory of hokku formation
unsatisfactory. I have decided to find an alternative theory. I have
researched every poem in the Man'yo-shuu. I was struck by the
many lyrical poems as fragments in the chooka. I believe that
these are the proto-haiku. Accordingly, to test this theory,
I began to write a chooka which had proto-haiku at every 11 verses of 2
line 5,7, units, with every first non-haiku verse a 7,5,7 verse. The
scheme is as follows: 5,7(verse I), 5,7,5,7,5,7, 5,7,5,7,5,7,5,7,5,7,5,7 -
5,7,5(proto-haiku verse XI) - 7,5,7 (verse XII- 5,7,5,7,5,7,5,7,5,7,5,7,5,7,5,7,5,7- 5,7,5 (proto-haiku verse XXII) - 7,5,7
(verse XXIII) - 5,7... In this way, a proto-haiku occurs every eleven
verses. This poem has a story, as did all the Man'yo-shuu
chooka, in which the photo-haiku are embedded. The story is the
meeting of two philosophers, both beautiful women. The older woman, Lady
Akaiko, about 65, has lived a very successful life. The younger woman, Lady
Kuniko, a 25 year old virginal woman with almost no experience of the world,
has left the Kamo river to find love. The women meet in the cedar forest
on Yakushima Island in 740 AD, 54 years before the founding of Kyoto. There
is a violent rainstorm, and the two women seek shelter in a temple. They
are astounded to find that they are both philosophers and both interested in
the nature of the soul. They concede that if the soul dies, what is
immortal? The story will be in 4 stages. Part I is in the forest
and in Lady Akaiko's home. Part II concerns the sea voyages from
the island of Yakushima to western Kyushu then to Naniwa in Honshu with
finally a palanquin journey to the Basin of the three rivers including the
Kamo.

Young men will fall in love with Lady Kuniko, but through the
influence of Lady Akaiko, Lady Kuniko will see them as shallow,
non-philosophical types.

Part III will be in the scroll room of Lady Kuniko's father
house, and in the cedar forests near the present site of Kyoto.
Here the two philosophers will attempt to prove that the intellect is
immortal. I plan for some fragments of Aristotle to be available to the
two ladies because traders have come to Western China through Afghanistan and
Persia. Part IV is their return to the Nara Court where Lady Kuniko
finds true love. The poem is now in progress. When the
already written proto-haiku are put together they link to form a non-logical
sequence, yet rational ideas run through the linkage. I call the whole
poem "The New De Anima" because, as an Aristotelian philosopher, I
have put his thoughts into their minds. Of course, the whole thing
is in a dynamic development. Since the proto-haiku link to the 5,7,
verses, the proto-haiku are themselves linked. Less than a fifth is
written. For my theory the verse numbers are important but would make no
sense to a reader, except that they would deduce the +11 sequence. In
the light of this essay, readers can see the reasoning that explains the
numbering of the verses. The action of the poem will take place over the
course of a year. All the poems in Part I are written in autumn,
therefore each one has an autumn kigo. The other seasons will follow
until Part IV, the summer in Nara. Of course, I shall continue my research to
refute the haiku evolving from the tanka theory, and to gain more evidence for
my own theory of proto-haiku from the chooka. For readers who do
not know the Man'yo-shuu there is a treasure waiting for
them. Among the many poems there will be found long chooka
which are the epics of Japanese poetry. There are twenty books in the Man'yo-shuu.
The recently revised Shimpen Kokka Taikan edition lists 4,540 poems.

THE NEW DE ANIMAA linked proto-haiku sequence taken from the long chookaHugh Bygott

PART I

XI
Through faint autumn mists,
this confusion of my eyes;
still water's silence.

XXII
Turning from this sky;
that dawn when the wild rose bloom'd:
now dust to my lips.

XXXIII
In the early light,
new dawn colours on the earth:
yet close: this sear'd leaf.

CCCXIX
The moon now higher -
Unrolling the fragile scrolls,
we see newer shapes.

CCCXXX
Panel to the sky ;
one more to see the brush strokes -
the mirrored moon.

CCCXLI
Clinging to the ledge,
this faded morning glory -
its time has passed.

CCCXLII
Remembered dusk -
that early chrysanthemum,
wither'd in the wind.

CCCLIII
In the night's stillness,
only sounds of falling leaves -
even to the heart.

CCCLXIV
Yuugao flowers,
quiet faces in the dark -
even little things.

CCCLXXV
Timing our return,
silently along her arc -
the radiant moon.

CCCLXXXVI
The morning glory,
wearied by the day's chances,
turning from the world.

END of PART ONE

Teikei: Notes on Stanza Structure
John Edmund Carley

The renga employs fixed form (teikei) stanza structures
based on the prosody of the 'zip' style haiku, a format originally proposed in
the first issue of World Haiku
Review . The long verse (chooku) comprises fifteen syllables
deployed at will over two lines, each line broken by a triple space (caesura).
The short verse (tanku) is composed of eleven syllables written as a
single line, broken in two places by identical caesurae. Line-break and
caesurae are intended to inflect both the meter and the semantic movement of
the verse. Typographically, the long verse centres on its caesurae.

J. Carley Bio: John Edmund Carley is 46 years old and lives in
the Rossendale valley, Lancashire, England: the cradle of the British
textile industry. A polyglot and former musician, John has a particular
interest in the phonic properties of poetry and has written, performed and
published a wide range of material in English, Italian, French and Piemoteis
as well as working on translations from Urdu, Bangla and, more recently,
Japanese. John works free lance as a creative writing tutor having recently
completed a twelve month residency as facilitator on an international open
access mail-group: The Pennine Poetry Works, sponsored by the Arts Council for
England. Deeply interested in both innovation and tradition, John is currently
the recipient of a North West Arts Board writer's bursary for the study of
Japanese verse forms in English.

A WORD OF PRAISE FOR PARTICIPATION RENGA
Jane Reichhold

Do you realize that a renga among the Participation Renga has been running
for seventeen years? I think "Gently Wiping Dust" started by Jim
Wilson (aka Tundra) surely must be the renga that has occupied collaborators
for the longest time. And as one reads through "Gently Wiping Dust"
(do you read the Participation renga) you will recognize many ‘names’ of
English renga writers, but more importantly, you will be reading renga with a
freshness, giant leaps, unusual subjects and viewpoints. Truly, this and the
other Participation Renga are the most up-to-date examples of renga in the
English language – bar none!

I have heard from persons, who shall remain unnamed, that they didn’t
like to submit links to the Participation Renga because their work got ‘lost’
(if no one responds to a link it is dropped). This is true, but in any
magazine in which you publish a haiku, it gets ‘lost’ when your haiku is
not put into the next issue and no one minds this fact of paper publishing.
With the renga, by our keeping them going, the links which do achieve a
response are carried on and on. If you keep up with the renga as Carlos Colon,
Gene Doty, Cindy Guntherman, John M. Bennett, Jean Jorgensen and we have done,
your links ‘live’ as long as the renga goes and even longer now that the
feature is online where everyone has access to past versions of the renga.
Someday, we tell ourselves, there has to be a book made of all the renga done
in this manner, with all the versions, so all the poems are saved properly.

Since Lynx went online, the number of people taking part has
dropped. At first I was okay with this as doing the Participation Renga
(keeping track of them and adding the links in the proper place and juggling
files) is a difficult job and I was happy to have less to confuse myself with.
But now (after two years!) I am getting fairly practiced with maneuvering the
files around and would like to see more participants. So you are cordially
invited to join this surely-to-be-famous fun by sending some stanzas to the
current open links (the ones in italic – notice). Many people find it
easiest to simply print out the whole Participation Renga file from the
internet on paper. Then you can curl up in your favorite chair, pick your
favorite links and let your mind explode with creativity as you write your
responding links. You can either send these papers by post to LYNX, pob 767,
Gualala, CA 95445 or you can type up the title of the renga, the link you are
linking to and your link with your initials in an e-mail and send it off to
us.

TSA 2002 Contest
CONTACT PERSON: Pamela Babusci.
DEADLINE: Postmark date of April 30, 2002
ELIGIBILITY: Open to all except TSA officers and judges
REGULATIONS: Any number of tanka may be submitted. Entries must be original,
in English, unpublished, and not submitted for publication or to any other
contest.
ENTRY FEE: $1.00 per tanka, U.S. funds only. Please make checks/money orders
payable to "Tanka Society of America c/o Larry Lavenz"SUBMISSIONS: Submit each tanka on three separate 3" x 5" index
cards, two with the tanka only (for anonymous judging), the third with the
tanka and the author's name and address in the upper left-hand corner. Please
type or print nearly.
SUBMIT ENTRIES AND FEES TO: Pamela A. Babusci, TSA Tanka Contest, 150 Milford
Street, Apt. 13, Rochester, NY 14615-1810 USA
AWARDS: First prize: $100; Second prize: $50; Third prize: $25. Amount of
prizes may be reduced if an insufficient number of entries is received.
Winning poems will be published in the TSA NEWSLETTER.
ADJUDICATION: the name(s) of the judge(s) will be announced after the contest.
RIGHTS: All rights revert to the authors after publication.
CORRESPONDENCE: Unfortunately, entries cannot be returned. Please send a SASE
for answers to queries or for a list of winning entries. For foreign entries,
send an SAE and one IRC.

LETTERS TO LYNX

. . .For those of us living in countries where the exchange
rate prohibits subscribing to overseas paper magazines, an online publication
such as Lynx is a true gift. My first introduction to tanka was at
AHApoetry.com. I have learnt SO much from all the information as well as
beautiful poetry there. Thanks to you and Jane for the wonderful online books
and excellent articles on your website! Maria
Steyn (Africa)

. . . Actually I am very pleased at the idea of putting the 10
recently submitted tanka together under one title as one poem. I agree
that there is an inner link to them all, but at first I did not see how to
arrange them to accommodate the three I put separately at the end.
Looking it over tonight, I think I see the logical progression of this
"sequence" and so have changed the order around though nothing
within the poems. I did, however, add one more tanka to the sequence
that to me seems to belong with the others. And I hope the new ordering
gives it something or an inner-reflective "narrative" progression
("after all these years" may be what sets if off), that compliments
the inner link. Let me know what you think. And thank you for your
time, thought, and perceptions. Larry
Kimmel

Good gracious
greetings... its a 15 degree cold snow but sunny morning here and a couple
friends from Pennsylvania are about to arrive and we'll go for what should be
a frigid but heart warming hike! I must go get ready for this day unfolding
but wanted to let you know your warm acceptance of so many of the tanka sent
certainly made my day-week and threshold into the New Year already great!
Happy New Year every day to you! Many thanks for the kind alert on
this... not sure i have worthy material but will let you decide that... here
is what is in my little pocket notebooks that i believe is not submitted or
previously published...I very much appreciate your thoughtfulness and feel not
a little sheepish sending things so close to your closing time on this issue
and am sorry i'm not more organized... a couple of these tanka even touch on
that conundrum! Wishing you all the best, Tom
Clausen

. . .The three renga done with Francine Porad which we are
submitting, are taken from a growing cycle titled "Probably: 'real' renga
sorta".
Marlene Mountain

i might have already asked you this, (perhaps years ago), so forgive me, if i
did. do you have an extra copy of: Tangled Hair: Selected Tanka from
the Midaregami, trans. by S. Goldstein, Tuttle 1987. Sanford,
doesn't have a copy. if you do, i would love to BUY it. i have
done used book searches on it for over a yr. with no success. if you
don't have a copy, do you know another poet, that might? thanks! pamela
babusci

. . . "haibunic clues" is one of my first attempt at
a multi-genre verse - it is solo rather than symbiotic, and it led Paul
Conneally and I to work on some multi-genre symbiotic works, eventually the
"Wordsworth Papers" pieces, a 9 part work to poetry by Wordsworth. "haibunic clues" consists of
1) haiku 2) a "new
form" ren, 3) tanka 4)"new form" ren 5) haiku 6) sijo 7) tanka -
non of the verses are in traditional Asian form, but are all avant-garde,
basically using the form but not the expected subject matter for content. I've
not published it yet, although it is on my Paper Lanterns website's personal
poetry pages. This first offering may not fit into any of the categories. It's
really different than all the categories you've listed, I think. I don't think
I've written any haibun with tanka lately, and I've not tried ghazal yet. Best
wishes for a great New Year 2002! Debi
Bender

Yes, we'll publish "haibunic clues" with our
February 2002 issue of LYNX. I somehow see that you want to use the word
haibun in the title. I personally don't know why. In European literature,
genres have been mixed since centuries. And so have American authors done that
later. In Japan, after my knowledge, a haibun is written by using text + one
or several haiku (seldom tanka). The mix of genres we're using in the West is
unknown in Japan where the poets, till today, have been
pushed into genre-groups, not even talking to members of other cliques. In Lynx, your work fits with the
section "Solo Works" meaning it is written by one person not in one
genre. There, we
already published many of mine and Jane's multi-genre works. "Solo
Works" is a chapter not bound to a specific genre, even though we keep
the tanka, ghazal or sijo together. For example, there are Sheila Murphy's
poems with no relation to known genres. Or the work I did with Kostelanetz.
"Solo Works" only signifies that the work is done by a single
person. The more avant-garde the better. Beginning 1994, I myself mixed,
without exception, all Japanese forms, ghazal, and European-American poetry
genres, including all kinds of prose and dialogue, including plays. I also
published my mixed genres on our Ahapoetry web site in three of the four
collections titled Cybertry, and in art books like Tidalwave and
Handshake.
All the best wishes for 2002!Werner.